


when it rains

by aesthetichomo



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Fluff, M/M, phil is in recovery, tbh im just wingin it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-12 21:03:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16003259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aesthetichomo/pseuds/aesthetichomo
Summary: When the door opens, he expects to see dead bodies lying on the carpet. He expects to see himself laying in bed, mouth open and eyes closed and skin so pale from the lack of oxygen that his lips are blue. He closes his eyes, then flips on the light switch.When he opens them, he sees it all with new vision.There are no bodies. His sheets are new. The curtains are drawn.It shouldn’t mean so much, should it?or, phil is an opioid addict in recovery.





	1. Chapter 1

Phil barely steps off the escalator before he’s being greeted by an all-consuming hug from his mum. 

She’s mumbling something to him, but he can hardly make out whatever it is she’s saying through her tears and whimpering. She’s always been a bit dramatic. 

“How do you feel, dove?” She asks him when they finally detach, the corners of her eyes still wet with tears. “I’ve missed you so much, my love, I’ve been waiting so long for you to come home. How’s my baby feeling? Was the trip okay? My word, look at how big you are!”

It’s like she’s completely forgotten Phil is 23 and not 7, especially when her hand smoothes over his fringe and sweeps it off his forehead. Phil knows he looks different, of course. The last time his mum saw him, he was...worse. Not as well. Bloody awful, really.

Last time, this was not somewhere Phil wanted to be. Not in this airport, not in this part of the country, and most certainly not with his  _ mother _ of all people. Even when she sobbed for him to try his best in the States, to come home when he was ready, to listen to the people who wanted to help him, he would’ve killed to be somewhere else. Somewhere closer to the coast, where he could walk down the pier and find what he needed, what he ached for. 

“Phil,” she repeats for what must be the third time now, “dear, how are you? You look a bit lost.”

Fuck, if that isn’t the truth. 

-

She drives him to his old flat, the one right outside of Manchester that he considered giving up when he left all those months ago. Part of him is glad he didn’t, because now he has a reason to decline his mum’s invitation to stay with her for the next few weeks.

“Just for a bit, so we can find you an appropriate place,” she explained as she pulled into the parking lot next to his complex. “I don’t want you to find anything in there that might…”

She doesn’t finish her sentence. She’s got a habit of doing that when she doesn’t want to say what she’s thinking. Luckily, Phil knows already. How could he not?

“I had Ian clean it out before I left. There shouldn’t be anything in there except some stale tea and a dusty PS4,” he says, although he’s somewhat hesitant to guarantee it. She worries so much already, she shouldn’t have to worry about him finding something he shouldn’t. Still, her eyes linger on him for a few seconds as she turns off the car. 

“Okay, love. I believe you. You just- if you do find something, yeah? Anything. You’ll call me and I’ll speed over and we’ll grab a cuppa. You won’t…”

_ You won’t waste everyone’s time again.  _

“Yeah, mum. I’ll call you. D’ya want to come in? I can finally give you your damn kettle back. Who knew it’d take this much for you to come see my flat again, right?”

His mum’s smile is tense, but her grip on the steering wheel loosens. “Maybe not tonight. Ms. Lin, she told me to open up at my own pace. Speaking of,” she reaches into her purse and pulls out a small envelope, “I’m supposed to give you this. They’re the letters from...well. Everyone.

Phil stares at the envelope for a few long moments. He debates on taking it and reading every letter again, or opening the passenger door and running as fast as he can. If he takes Norwell all the way into town, he can make it to the tube by 5, Ian might still be awake...he could…

“I’m so glad you’re home,” his mum whispers when she rests her head in her hands, and Phil can see her shoulders tremble, “Phil, you’ve got to read those letters when you feel like you might-”

This time, Phil doesn’t want her to finish.

“I love you, Mum,” he tells her, pulling her in for a half-hug, the divider between the two seats pushing just a little too much into his hip. “I won’t leave you again. I’m going to try this time.”

He wishes he didn’t have to see the look of instinctual doubt she gives him. 

-

Phil stops before he opens the door to his bedroom. 

The living room, the kitchen, those were easy to get through. Everything was tidy, if not a bit too clean for his liking, but the bedroom. His bedroom.

The things he’s done in that fucking bedroom.

The things he’s ruined, the things he’s stolen, the things he’s lied about and broken just for...a feeling. 

When the door opens, he expects to see dead bodies lying on the carpet, blood on his sheets, needles and bags and lighters strewn across his dresser. He expects to see himself laying in bed, mouth open and eyes closed and skin so pale from the lack of oxygen that his lips are blue. He closes his eyes, then flips on the light switch. 

When he opens them, he sees it all with new vision. 

There are no bodies. His sheets are new. The curtains are drawn. 

His bed is empty. He is breathing. 

It shouldn’t mean so much, should it?

-

There’s an incessant ringing that just barely stirs Phil from his nap. The alarm clock blinks a lonely 2:56 pm and his phone, yeah, his phone is ringing. 

Bullocks. It’s Martyn. He figured he’d have to cross this bridge eventually, but he had hoped for later rather than sooner. 

“Ello?” He answers, his voice froggy but coherent for once. 

It’s not good enough. For some reason, Phil isn’t surprised. 

“Are you kidding me? Are you fuckin’ high already? Don’t lie to me, I swear to god I’ll-”

“I’m not high,” Phil mutters, pulling the phone from his ear so he can somewhat block out the verbal assault he’s in the middle of receiving. “Martyn.  _ Martyn _ . Dear fuck, can you listen to me? I’m not high! I’ve been napping for the past two hours!”

Martyn silences almost immediately. “You- you were napping? At your flat?”

Phil nods, then remembers no one can see him. “Yeah, I’m at my flat. I had Ian clean it for me.”

Martyn doesn’t respond for a long time. Thirty seconds, then a minute.

“Martyn?”

“You can keep napping, you know,” he says, and his voice sounds broken, “let me stay on the line with you. Please. I’m sorry for shouting.”

Phil’s throat hurts. He wants to cry. He can’t seem to cry right now, though. 

“Okay. Yeah. I’ll set an alarm for 3:30.”

“Okay.”

It takes longer than Phil had hoped, but he does manage to find a comfortable state of rest once again.

-

There was a point in time that Phil dreaded a moment of clarity. He wanted rose-coloured glasses, a veil of diamonds, anything, to make this reality just a little less real. He could close his eyes and see darkness but not much changed when he opened them. In the time he spent chasing things to change what he couldn’t, he lost so much more than he cared to recognize. 

Now that he sees it, has swept up what he destroyed, there is clarity. 

And in that clarity, there is a bedroom door he hasn’t opened in three months.

Because that’s not his door to open. He doesn’t know what could be laying on that bedroom floor, what he could find in there, what words are written on the walls. (Although, technically, Ian has made sure there’s nothing  _ truly _ harmful behind that door.) 

Phil used to waltz in without a knock. 

He knocks three times, and when no one tells him to come in, he walks away. 

-

“You’ve got to keep busy, Phil. Do you remember what boredom leads to? I think we both know you do.”

PJ’s voice is nice, Phil will admit that much. The silence of his flat gets to him after a while. 

“Yes, I remember. I’ve only been gone for, what, two days? I’ve been trying to stay busy. There’s...it’s difficult when I’ve got so much shit to deal with still.”

He’s realized over the past two days that he has gotten too honest. Or maybe he just lied too much before. 

“Have you looked for meetings? Sophie would email you a list if you asked, I’m sure,” Peej suggests, and Phil holds back an eye roll.

“I have a list of, like, 20. They’re all close, so transport isn’t an issue or anything. I don’t think- I don’t know. I’m not ready for it.”

“Ready for what? Sobriety? You should’ve told me this when you were still in the lovely swamps of Orlando. I could’ve helped you then.”

“No, no, not sobriety,” Phil clarifies, “I’m more than ready to live sober. I’m not ready...fuck, can I just say it? And you won’t judge me?”

“Mate, we shot puddle water into our veins. I don’t think either of us can be judgemental, yeah?”

Phil remembers that. He can still see the water, a murky light brown color, cooking with the dope. He remembers the syringe, how it was almost full. He shudders. His mouth waters. 

“I need someone with me,” he blurts, cringing as he says it, “yeah, I told everyone at Horizons that I was ready to be alone but my flat is so empty and I knocked at his door, did I tell you I knocked? Even when I knew he wasn’t in there?”

Peej chuckles. “How painful was that? Philip, I love you, you are my best friend. But you and I both know this isn’t about sobriety. Well, actually, forget I said that. Everything is about sobriety, your entire life is dedicated to it now.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome! But genuinely, Phil, you should call him. Didn’t he say he’d come back in a heartbeat if you got clean?”

“I suppose he did. He doesn’t have to mean that though,” Phil replies, staring down at the notebook in his lap. He has the address. He has the number. He could walk there right now if he wanted to. “He doesn’t want to...junkies, right? No one wants one.”

The tone is cold now. Phil didn’t mean for it to come out with such a bite. 

Neither say anything for a solid 20 seconds. 

“You have been sober for 3 months, two weeks, 5 days, 9 hours, 22 minutes and 34, 35, 36 seconds. You’ve lost your junkie status,” PJ says, absolute and confident, “better luck catching the pity train next time.”     

It gets Phil to laugh, if nothing else.

-

There’s four text messages on Phil’s phone the next morning, all from the same random phone number. He doesn’t know any number with the area code, which makes his eyebrows crease as his screen glares at him in the early morning darkness of his bedroom. He opens them without thinking.

_ Hey mate heard ur out of rehab _

_ Didnt u go to the 3 month shit?? Bet that was a trip huh  _

_ O hell its Ian btw just got a new cell _

_ Hope this is still ur # _

Instantly, Phil’s heart rate picks up and he retracts into the deepest, ugliest corners of his mind. The doors he’s padlocked shut are shaking at the hinges, threatening to snap at any second if he got his fingers to type out what he would’ve not too long ago. 

If he types it, he knows what he’ll do. He’ll run down Norwell, catch the tube, walk those three blocks to Ian’s little flat in the middle of a neighborhood that seems to brew in darkness. He’ll ring the doorbell four times, because that’s how Ian knows it’s someone looking for a fix. He’ll walk in when Ian gives him the go ahead, and he’ll see that same black coffee table covered in white and brown powders, pills scattered in the most beautiful rainbow he’s ever seen. The ten dollars he wanted to spend on lunch with Martyn would go to Ian’s own habit and they’d get high.

Holy shit, they’d get  _ so _ high. Phil remembers the times he would fall to his knees in the middle of Ian’s flat, eyes half closed and mouth open with shallow breaths. God, the warm blanket feeling would be so powerful, so consuming, so fucking close to serenity. 

And he’d lose everything. If he gets serenity, he will lose everything else. 

_ Peej _ , he thinks to himself, phone screen long since timed out, _ I need to talk to Peej _ .

He presses call on PJ’s contact, and it rings for what feels like hours until his voicemail answers instead. Phil doesn’t leave a message, and hangs up before he has a choice. 

His mum would panic. He can already see it in her eyes, that hint of disappointment and anxiety that he had to face for years before he got clean. Before he hit rock bottom. 

Does it really have to be rock bottom already? He could see Ian once. Ian is his friend, and he wants to hang out with someone who gets him like that. Three months, they haven’t seen each other, who knows? Maybe he’s clean too. Phil could go, just to see. 

Fuck. The sun peaks through the gaps in the blinds, shining directly in Phil’s face. 

_ “If you do this, I’ll be there with you every step of the way. I won’t force that distance between us like I’ve had to. I won’t ignore you when you knock on my door. I won’t hide from you in the flat we’re supposed to share. But if you don’t go- Phil, please look at me. If you don’t do this, I will never come back. I won’t be around to bring you back again.”  _

He dials 2. He doesn’t know why. 

(Of course he does.)

It only rings twice.

“Hello?” 

Phil can’t stop himself from crumbling at the sound of his voice.

“Phil? Hey, are you okay? Phil?”

He sniffles, digging his palm into his eye to stop the sudden rush of tears. “Damn it, hi Dan. I’m- I’m alright, yeah. I’m, uh...I’m so bloody happy to hear your voice.”

There’s a few seconds of semi-silence, in which Phil can hear the faintest sound of a shaky breath. 

“Phil,” Dan exhales, low and relieved, “I was waiting. Your mum told me you got in a couple nights ago...I figured you’d take your time to, um, reconnect, I guess? I didn’t know if you’d want to talk to me after...after what we did.”

The thought crossed Phil’s mind. He pondered the outcome of running, taking off to Ireland, or Scotland, or wherever Ian could get him to go, so he wouldn’t have to get clean or talk so openly about his problem. Even after his mum poured her heart out to him, his father weeped over the loss of his son, his soulmate gave him an ultimatum, he still thought about how far he could go. What he would do for just another high. 

“You did the right thing. I needed to get sober. It was life or death, yeah?” Phil says, his attempt at sounding calm just a tad underwhelming. 

“I know, yeah. I went to therapy too, loser.”

There it is. There’s the reason he stayed. 

“So you’re not upset?” Phil asks, because he’s awful at social cues when he’s not shitfaced.

“Not at all. Well, maybe a little, because you missed the new Mario Kart release and it’s fucking  _ badass _ , mate.”

Phil smiles. Ian can wait for another day, he decides.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phils steps towards him. He wants to apologize and make everything okay, make Dan want to come forward and hug him like he used to, press his lips to Phil’s forehead like he did back when things were better. Phil wants to tell him that the last 3 months have been the hardest he’s ever gone through and he still has dreams about the life he gave up and he won’t die on the kitchen floor again if Dan will forgive him just one more time. 
> 
> He opens his mouth, and nothing comes out. 
> 
> Dan hugs him anyway.

“Hi, I’m Phil, and I’m heroin addict.”

A chorus of “ _ hi Phil _ ” fills the room, and he looks to the meeting coordinator for instructions on what to do next. David, Phil thinks, David is his name. 

Phil’s been to meetings before, back when he thought getting sober meant getting through detox, attending a couple Narcotics Anonymous groups, then relapsing for months (or, more likely, years.) So he gets it, he knows what he’s doing and he knows what he did to get here. He doesn’t get why other people would care, though. Who would care about what Phil’s done?

“As most of you know, Phil is a new friend here in our group. So, if we could all give him a listening ear, I’m gonna let him take the spotlight,” David says easily, “whenever he’s ready, that is.”

Phil doesn’t know if he’s ever going to be ready to be in the spotlight. 

He hates that the first thing he wants to do is get high. 

“Um, thank you. Like I said, I’m a heroin addict. It started out with pills and stuff, ‘cause I had an knee injury when I was in sixth form and got some prescriptions for pain. My friend Ian told me that if we took a couple extra, we’d get stoned. Which is rather stupid, looking back, because I don’t even think I had smoked weed before. I just wanted to try it, y’know, because Ian said it’d be fun,” he recalls, staring at the space in front of him as he remembers that night. It’s a night he’s managed to keep close to him, even when his memory fades in and out throughout the years. 

“My knee healed up after a few weeks, but I still had enough pills to last me another month before I ran out. After I used up all my Percocet, Ian told me he broke his toe at work. He had a bottle of Opana with his nan’s name on it, but I thought she just bought them for him. I thought that’s how it worked. I didn’t think he would’ve stolen from her. Part of me, like, still doesn’t? She had cancer, and was losing her hair. I didn’t…” Phil swallows hard, suddenly overwhelmed by the people around him. He feels like he’s suffocating in his skin, like everyone finally knows he’s fucked up and he can’t escape their judgement. 

“I guess that’s when it took off. When one of us healed up, the other would find something to break. I broke my wrist twice, slammed my own fucking foot in a door,” he clenches his fists instinctively, and the air in the room weighs heavy on his shoulders. “When the doctors stopped giving me pills, Ian told me that we could try something else. He said it was some crushed Oxys mixed with some weird filler powder. It was heroin. I found out, but I didn’t even care. That high was the only thing I wanted from that point on,” he shrugs and squeezes his eyes closed for a moment, “and it’s still the only thing I want sometimes. Isn’t that pathetic? I never wanted to get clean before, never even spared a bloody thought for it. How could I have fucked up so much, but still want to do it?”

No one speaks when he finishes. He doesn’t look up from his lap. 

David finally pipes up when Phil’s wiped his eyes with his sweater sleeve. “Thank you, Phil. I think we have a long way to go, but we can’t be so angry with ourselves. You’re an addict, you will crave your drug in the best and worst times of your life. I don’t know about you, but I see a future of strong sobriety and mental adjustment. But we don’t have to focus on that, okay? We’ll focus on today.”

Phil listens. Maybe thats whats different from last time he got clean, and the times before that. He’s trying, right? And he’s listening to the people who want to help him. Every other time he was forced into rehab or dragged to a NA meeting, he just sat and waited for it to end. He’d share, probably make up some lie about how he wasn’t really addicted, how he was just young and having a bit of fun with his mates. 

It isn’t fun anymore. The withdrawal, the mental cravings, the damage he’s done, it all stopped being fun so long ago. Why didn’t he stop before? Why did he have to keep taking it, snorting it, shooting it?

Why couldn’t he  _ stop _ ?

After the meeting is dispersed, Phil grabs a to go cup full of the cheap coffee at the snack tables and waits outside for his ride. 

His ride, funnily enough, is the reason he’s here, outside of a church he’s never heard of or cared to find, with a little badge that reminds him he’s 3 months clean. His mum said it’s not healthy to put that kind of responsibility on someone, but there’s no doubt in Phil’s mind: if Dan hadn’t done what he did those few months ago, Phil would not be here.

Phil would not be alive, either. He keeps forgetting that.

(Forget isn’t the word. Phil couldn’t forget that night. The blackening of his vision. His back hitting the floor. The feeling of a million bricks on his ribs so he couldn’t breathe. The small noise he made as he heard the front door of the flat open.

Anything past that, Phil was not alive for.)

Dan’s car pulls up and Phil can feel that seemingly permanent lump in his throat throb. He hasn’t seen Dan since he left. The last time Dan saw him, Phil was high, emaciated, toeing the line of existence. 

The terrifying part is that Phil still sees that version of himself when he passes a mirror. 

When the driver’s side door opens, it takes everything in Phil not to run. He’s noticed that recently; he runs away when things get to be more than he can handle. He runs away and he finds drugs to replace what he’s left behind. 

Dan’s crying face, Phil tells himself, is something he won’t run from anymore.

Instead, Phils steps towards him. He wants to apologize and make everything okay, make Dan want to come forward and hug him like he used to, press his lips to Phil’s forehead like he did back when things were better. Phil wants to tell him that the last 3 months have been the hardest he’s ever gone through and he still has dreams about the life he gave up and he won’t die on the kitchen floor again if Dan will forgive him just one more time. 

He opens his mouth, and nothing comes out. 

Dan hugs him anyway.

“You... _ Phil _ ,” he whispers, digging his face into Phil’s neck as his arms shake around Phil’s waist. Phil hugs back. He breathes in the scent of Dan’s cologne, hoping his tears fade away by the time they pull apart.

They don’t, and neither do Dan’s. 

The kiss on Phil’s forehead makes up for it, yeah. 

-

“I haven’t been up to much, no. I wrote you letters every week, but the facility always sent them back to me. You missed so much, I don’t even know where to start. I wasn’t really, uh, fuck,” Dan pauses, his voice breaking at the end, “I wasn’t fully convinced you made it that night, you know? I still feel like I’m talking to a ghost. When I hugged you, I half-expected to hug a corpse.”

Phil nods. He gets it. 

“It’s not that I’m upset at you for what happened,” Dan explains, rubbing at his eyes and Phil can see that he’s full-on crying now. “I wish I could forget that night and remember more of the good ones. Like the night we got into uni, or your 18th birthday, or something else. I don’t want to remember that night.”

Phil doesn’t either. He tries not to.

“I don’t know if I can go inside with you. I want to, I want to more than anything, Phil. But I haven’t...when you left...I don’t know if you went into my room or-”

“I didn’t. Couldn’t.”

Dan doesn’t say anything. He stares at the steering wheel for a long time. Phil holds his 3 month chip in his hand. Half of him wants to frame it, take pictures with it, hold it up to the world and say ‘look! I got clean too! I did it!’. The stronger part of him wants to throw it in the garbage and go to Ian’s. 

What’s the point of being clean if he has to deal with this, with the memories and aftermath of his use. Is it worth being clean for? To listen to the same stories over and over, feel that guilt over and over? To remember he’s just a junkie with a little sober time?

“You can...I don’t know if this is right for your sobriety, I don’t know, but uh. I got a new place? It’s just a couple minutes from here. I could, if you wanted...maybe take you there? This is so close to Ian’s, isn’t it?”

It is. In Phil’s mind, he’s already making excuses for staying. He knows Dan can see him thinking it too. 

“Hey, Phil?” He says, glancing over so he can look Phil in the eye. It makes Phil squirm in his seat, all too ready to run if this conversation gets too heavy.

“Yeah?”

“I’m proud of you. I would bring you back 100 times if it meant getting you back like this.” His hand covers Phil’s where they’re against the armrest, squeezing the tips of his fingers. “You deserve to feel good about yourself again.”

That, Phil knows, isn’t completely true.

-

Dan’s new flat is different. 

Back before Phil started digging holes and crawling into them, he and Dan coexisted in a flat that was so perfectly  _ them _ that it feels weird now, standing in a flat that doesn’t welcome him. 

“It’s small,” Dan sighs as he toes off his shoes, slipping his jacket off as well, “which works out, actually, since took most of the stuff from my room and left the rest at the flat. My mum gave me some old furniture and your mum gave me most of my kitchen things. It takes a village to make a home.”

_ You had a home _ , Phil doesn’t say.  _ We had a home. We built one, from an empty two bedroom flat and not much else.  _

Dan walks him through the apartment, explaining things that Phil would probably care about more if he could shake the awful feeling in his stomach. He can’t stop thinking that he is trespassing, invading a space he doesn’t belong in. It’s stupid, he knows it is, but the entire apartment feels like a post-Phil nest.

“Dan?”

Dan turns around from where he’s showcasing his collection of board games, a few of Phil’s old ones still stashed with them. “Hm?”

“Did you want me to die that night?”

He doesn’t know why he says it. He means it, and maybe he does want to know. 

But the look Dan gives him hurts enough for him to change his mind. 

His cheeks fall, the color in his face just a little less vibrant as he blinks a few times. His jaw shifts when he makes eye contact again. “I thought you were dead when I found you. My brain was too focused on making you not-dead rather than whether or not I wanted you to die. Which, really, what the fuck, Phil?”

He’s not angry. Phil knows when Dan is angry, and he’s not right now. He’s confused, and helpless.

“I don’t know, I’m sorry,” Phil says, rubbing his hands over his face, “I don’t know why I keep fucking doing that. I keep- like, I can’t stop myself from asking people questions. I never did that before.”

Dan doesn’t reply. He walks past the shelf of games and down a hallway, to a door just past the bathroom. It’s Dan’s bedroom. Dan still has the sign that says it.

Phil takes a sharp breath when Dan opens the door, and there’s the picture.  _ That _ picture, the one Dan kept by his side of the bed in Phil’s room. The one they took so many years ago, when Phil wasn’t an addict and Dan wasn’t hiding from him and they were so fucking in love that the world could fall to pieces around them and they couldn’t care less. Phil’s smile is real, his diploma in his hands and Dan’s arms squeezing him tight while he presses a kiss to Phil’s cheek. 

He had everything.

And he lost it, lost every piece of the world that fell apart around him. 

“I didn’t want you to die,” Dan whispers, voice thick with something Phil feels too, “you died, though. For two minutes, you weren’t alive. And those were the worst two minutes I’ve ever lived through, Phil. Those two minutes stole a part of me I will never get back.”

Phil doesn’t want to respond. He doesn’t want to witness the crying anymore, he doesn’t want to relive that night anymore. He doesn’t want to live at all if he has to hear this shit. Why can’t he just be high forever?

“You said you keep asking questions, right?” Dan asks, and Phil nods. Dan takes a step closer to him, puts a hand on Phil’s neck. His middle finger lingers on Phil’s pulse. “You finally want answers, love. You want someone to tell you why this happened. You want it to go away.”

Phil hates how true it is, how Dan  _ still _ knows him so well even when addiction has made him into someone he doesn’t even understand. He feels Dan pressing his middle finger down, eyes locked on Phil’s while he feels the beat of his heart. 

“I will never give up on you,” he mumbles, “your family will never give up on you. Why are you giving up on yourself already, babe? Don’t you know you mean so much to this world?”

“No,” Phil whines, breaking in two the second Dan pulls him into a hug, “I don’t know what I am anymore, I don’t know who to be, what the hell I ever did before I found the drugs-”

“Shh, love, breathe,” Dan holds him tight, keeps his voice close to Phil’s ear and one hand on Phil’s pulse. “We’ll figure it out, right? That’s what we do, we figure it out in good time. I’ll stay with you while you remember, okay? You’re still here, you’re still alive. You’re  _ here _ , Phil.”

Phil keeps crying, for hours that feel like seconds, while Dan holds him and listens to him cry for and about drugs. 

He thinks today is what matters more.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cried writing this so im with u 
> 
> anyway dansblue on tumblr ! i dont post at all but u can reblog the fic there


End file.
